A Question About Using Questions As Part of the Process

[Wandering Author]

First, the background. I’ve found, for me, one of the best ways to develop characters and settings if I’m struggling is to turn to a toolkit of questions to explore aspects I haven’t thought of. I’m not talking about obvious ones, like favourite foods or movies. In-depth questions that come at things from odd angles. (Say, asking a character, “What’s the one thing in your life you’re most ashamed of? Proudest of?” Or asking one of their friends, “What is their biggest flaw they’re not even aware of?” Those are, of course, only examples.) If you use a process anything like this, I suspect you’ll understand what I’m trying to say. If you don’t, I doubt you can help me.

I’ve started wondering about approaching troublesome plots the same way. Yes, I know the basic, obvious questions you’re supposed to ask. I’m not talking about those. Has anyone heard of something like this? Does anyone know of any examples to get me thinking? I’d really like to come up with a nice little toolkit of questions I can attack story fragments with to figure out how to get the plot back on track. Sooner or later, I suspect I’ll come up with some, but if anyone has any suggestions to jump start me, I’d appreciate it. (Hey, if you know of any good lists of questions dealing with characters or settings – or any other aspect of stories you can think of – I might pick up something useful.)

[djmills]

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I usually start with the obvious for each scene, who are in the scene, why in scene, what’s in it for each character, what conflict and changes happened in the scene, then branch out from those answers with more questions. Then I look at the overall plot (story) and ask ‘what if’ each scene ended differently, eg. if the change that happened did not happen or happened differently. What would the characters impacted most do next to achieve their goal if the change happened differently. I am really looking for gems in what happened in the scene or the characters speech to bring in other elements/actions/conflict/twists.

I would be happy to see your final set of questions when you figure it out.

[Wandering Author]

djmills wrote:

I would be happy to see your final set of questions when you figure it out.

I don’t mind sharing, if I do get it figured out, but I’m not sure there will be a “final” set. I’m always looking for and tweaking the questions I have for characters and settings. I suspect it will be the same here. Because a question that works once may not work for another character, so I like to have a selection to choose from. And don’t expect anything soon, because if I’m lucky, I’ll be working on this for months… Took me about two years to get a decent set for characters and setting and so on.

[Linda Adams]

I don’t know if this will help …

These questions come from an article in the current issue of Writer’s Digest called Go Organic. I pulled four of them that have really worked for me in the creation of individual scenes:

1. Does this scene ratchet up the tension of the one before it?
2. Is this event caused by the one before it?
3. What is the setback in the scene?
4. Does the scene end in an unexpected way?

I’m also not detail-oriented. I can walk around a place, notice some details, and five minutes after I leave, they’re gone. I remember the big picture stuff, but when it comes to the details, I end up struggling to remember anything at all, especially things like sounds and smells. I end up defaulting to the sound of footsteps a lot because I can’t pull out any other kind of detail.

So I’ve been thinking that if I go to a place, just dash off some notes about the details. Then come back and make up a list of details that might be associated with that location. That way, when I’m trying to come up with something, I can refer to the list and get something beyond the footsteps. This was an example of what I jotted down today:

Thump of helicopter blades
Sound of waterfall
Higher notes of a woman’s voice
Deeper man’s voice, then fade away
The scrape of a jogger’s foot on the sidewalk
Grinding of a utility truck

If I were to try to describe it without any notes, I would talk about the waterfall and how hot it was, and then try to figure out what else I could mention. So maybe this will be a way to help me with a work around.

ETA:

For the setting, I ask questions specific to the setting. If it’s a forest, what kind of trees are in this forest? What kind of birds live here? What kind of animals? If it’s a beach, what kind of shorebirds? What kind of fish live under the sea? What kind of shells would wash ashore? What kind of seaweed? (All of which has to be researched, since I can’t trust my ability to actually get the details correct).

[BonnieRS]

I find that if I ask questions that are in any way related to writing terminology, such as “does it increase the tension?” I find a way to answer it in abstract story terms that have little or nothing to do with what’s going on in the actual story.

I have much better luck with questions that are specific to the characters and situation. So I’ll ask things like, “Did John know Darlene before they met at work?” and “Wait, if Cassie’s father is so abusive, cruel, and arbitrary, how come she loves him so much? Does he have redeeming traits, or is she doing it for some other reason?” “If Michael’s father used to go out with Lorinda’s mother before they both married other people, he must have SOME feelings about Michael’s crush on Lorinda.”

Oh, wait, just using that question as an example made me realize this explains a piece of Michael’s father’s very inconsistent behavior. He’s a rather strict disciplinarian, but he’s been tolerating the way Michael spends all his spare time with the drama club. But it’s because of that former feeling.

Thanks for asking

[Wandering Author]

BonnieRS wrote:

I find that if I ask questions that are in any way related to writing terminology, such as “does it increase the tension?” I find a way to answer it in abstract story terms that have little or nothing to do with what’s going on in the actual story.

I have much better luck with questions that are specific to the characters and situation. So I’ll ask things like, “Did John know Darlene before they met at work?” and “Wait, if Cassie’s father is so abusive, cruel, and arbitrary, how come she loves him so much? Does he have redeeming traits, or is she doing it for some other reason?” “If Michael’s father used to go out with Lorinda’s mother before they both married other people, he must have SOME feelings about Michael’s crush on Lorinda.”

Oh, wait, just using that question as an example made me realize this explains a piece of Michael’s father’s very inconsistent behavior. He’s a rather strict disciplinarian, but he’s been tolerating the way Michael spends all his spare time with the drama club. But it’s because of that former feeling.

Thanks for asking

😆

That’s an interesting point. I think I have some of that problem – and I certainly do ask a lot of questions specific to the story, if I’m trying to figure out the kinds of things you’re describing.

But – and I understand the same process doesn’t work for everyone – I do get some use out of the right more general, abstract questions. That’s the real trick: finding just the right question to ask. (Which, by the way, is why I prefer to keep a ‘toolkit’ of them around. Because even with the right questions, the one that works in one case won’t work in another.)

Now, “Does this increase the tension?” wouldn’t gain me much. Although I do try to look for areas of “friction” (in, very loosely, the sense Clausewitz used the term) in the plot. My list is more things like “What is the character afraid of?” or “What one thing in their life is the character most ashamed of?” – questions that help me get into the characters’ heads. Or “Why does the character prefer a particular mode of transport?” Why questions are incredibly useful in the right situation.

Only what I’m trying to develop now is a set of questions that let me peer into the core of the plot itself, to understand more about what’s going on, what could go on, and what might be going wrong. That gets a little trickier, since the plot doesn’t have a specific personality of its own. Or at least, a “voice”. (If a writer finds the plot starts waking them up to talk to them, I think that might be a sign they’ve finally dived over the edge… )

[BonnieRS]

Yes, “why” questions were high on my list of helpful things, but truthfully, the other kind of question doesn’t help me much, probably because I was so glibly good at essay questions way back when and learned to bullshit my way through questions like that. Sometimes it will lead to interesting information, but more often it’s, “Character A is most afraid of situation B because of blah blah blah,” and it’s all on the surface. It doesn’t work when I try to apply what’s essentially literary analysis to my own work in progress. That said, though, I have known many people for whom those questions are a big help, so it’s possible I’m just weird

I’m not sure I agree that plots don’t have a voice, either. They certainly have moods, and atmospheres. Situations and settings can latch onto the psyche and not let go until I figure out how to turn them into story. Some plots — perhaps most of my good ones — come so inextricably bound to a character that the character’s voice and the plot’s voice are the same. But your basic questions–what’s going on, what could go on, what could go wrong–are critical to any plot no matter what its voice or its attitude.

[Author]

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